A. Bartlett Giamatti
Play of Double Senses
Spenser's Faerie Queene
"A balanced, coherent reading that is both enlightening and full of delight."
—Choice
"My hope has been to provide students (and teachers) of Spenser's epic with ways
of approaching the poem. The first part of the book is concerned with contexts—the
life of Spenser, some forms the epic took before (and after) his own, the pervasiveness
of certain literary figures (like Chaucer) and figures from literature (like Arthur)
during his time. In discussing these topics, I have also tried to place Spenser's
text itself. The chapter on overall structure, where others have preceded me, is
intended to fasten on the whole poem. The next, on Pageantry, is my own foray into
the subject and strategems of Allegory, though I have chosen to speak of Allegory
in terms the poem (and not simply the Letter to Raleigh) constantly employs.
This chapter and the last three then focus on the 'play of double senses' (a text
derived from Book III, canto iv, stanza 28) as I see it working in specific ways
in the epic, thus suggesting how Spenser participates in the epic tradition that
I sketched in Chapter II." —from the Preface
A. Bartlett Giamatti, at the time of his death Commissioner of Baseball, was a former
professor of English and president of Yale University.
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